Tuesday, 7 April 2009

A really good weekend!

On Saturday, we made a 160 mile round trip to watch Belper Town win at Stamford AFC. A goal down after about 35 minutes, Belper came out in the second half and after a combination of hard work and good football, eventually snatched the winner with a terrific Ben Walker header in the last 20 seconds of the game.

Here's Ant Wilson battling for the ball: (One of my pics this!)

The win was important because Retford, the league leaders, only managed a draw at Willenhall. This all leaves Belper 4 points behind Retford with 2 games in hand. As these things often work out in football, Belper use up one of those games in hand tonight.... at Willenhall!

A good win was overshadowed in some respects by some disagreement and "frank exchanges of views" between some of the Stamford support and the Belper bench but that has already been debated long enough and loud enough on the Belper Forum. It's just a pity it has taken away from the football, a lot of which was very good (from both sides.)

Anyway - Sunday morning we were up early and off to watch the Sheffield Junior League Cup and Trophy finals in the Under-11 and under-14 age groups. The venue was the home ground of Middlewood Rovers who have a terrific set up, including a cafe where they serve the best bacon butties I have tasted in a long time. The Duchess is Registrar for the Under-11 age group which is why she was attending. Me? - I was only there cos I'd heard about those bacon butties!

There were 2 finals in each age group, on adjacent pitches so we got to see 4 games of football and on the whole, it wasn't a bad standard at all.

All in all a great weekend. Can't get to Willenhall to shout on the lads tonight - it's just that bit too far after a day at work - but we'll hopefully be there on Friday to see them play fellow promotion chasers Glapwell. Can't wait!